HOLLOW + DENSITY OF EMPTINESS + PHOBOS + SHADOWLESS – IN TRANSIT + MAL TOURNÉ + GREAT ARE THE EYES OF A DEAD FATHER

Hollow

Mohammadreza Farzad / Germany, France, Iran / 2023 / 15 min / World Premiere

Hollow is an essayistic observation of life and death framed by a panopticon.

‘Hollow’ is a minimalistic reflection on how we are born, live and die in cells struggling to release. A struggle under an omniscient eye. Hollow is an associative and soul-searching journey passing through the troglodyte village of Meymand to a secret police prison turned into a museum, a rectangular pigeon house, to Ekbatan, a high-rise residential complex, ends up into Behesht-e Zahra of Tehran, the largest Cemetery in Iran. Hollow is a long gaze into a cabinet of mortalities, a wunderkammer keeping its mystery and malady hidden. 

Density of Emptiness

Shirin Barghnavard, Shirin Barghnavard / Germany, France, Iran / 2023 / 19 min / World Premiere

An analysis of space in the city of Tehran from the perspective of some of the cities’ vulnerable women.

‘Density of Emptiness’ showcases the unbalanced density in the concept of place, the
unbalanced division of space in the city of Tehran. A reality that the filmmaker exposes
through a voice-over narration based on her research and by comparing photographs –
taken ten years ago by an Iranian female photographer – of troubled women living in a
semi-public shelter in a poor neighborhood in the south of Tehran in contrast to modern,
empty high-rise buildings in the northern districts of the city.

Phobos

Mina Keshavarz / Germany, France, Iran / 2023 / 13 min / World Premiere

A City constantly threatened by war in a never-ending nightmare.

‘Phobos’ is a poetic and experimental short documentary that transcends the fear of war
and destruction. Bushehr on the Persian golf builds a natural border to the sea. Mina Keshavarz grew up there. Her surrealistic picture of getting lost in a town known to her,
looking for her home, family, and friends narrates her constant nightmare of an
abandoned city.

Shadowless – In Transit

Azin Faizabadi / Germany, France, Iran / 2023 / 25 min / World Premiere

A dreamy and enigmatic film about facing your own shadow and stare back at it through the viewfinder of a camera.

A hybrid fiction-documentary film about a traveller from Iran whose shadow wants to make itself independent upon arrival in Germany. Facing it and gazing at the shadow with the help of his video camera, memories and flashbacks cut rhythmically into the traveller’s records of the present until a remix of his past and future occurs. All this in an in-between space, in a non-place, ‘In Transit’.
 

Mal Tourné

Pooya Abbasian, Pooya Abbasian / Germany, France, Iran / 2023 / 25 min / World Premiere

The post-industrial suburbs of Paris provide an atmospheric setting for a short film about a community of refugees outside the city.

’Mal Tourné’ is a short documentary about a missed rendez-vous with a community of refugees by the canal in Saint-Denis, France. A poetical observation of the traces of past lives left in the post-industrial landscape of the Paris suburbs.

Great are the Eyes of a dead Father

Afsaneh Salari / Germany, France, Iran / 2023 / 29 min / World Premiere

Loss and longing in a sensual tale of nostalgia for a place you’ve never really been to.

At a first glance, nothing seems to be missing in the life of Patrick Navai—painter and poet—his wife Sylvie, and their musician son, Yvan. They live in a medieval village near a big & misty forest in France. Their daily routine is filled with enchanting hours of painting, playing music, reading poetry, and long family walks up the green hills. However, an unfulfilled desire for belonging echoes in every corner of Patrick’s life.